WCMMA 23 provided a night of varying entertainment, as Youcef Dahmani reports.
It was a slightly underwhelming night despite a number of new semi-pro title holders, each contest decided by way of decision. However, the main event of the night (a professional, non-title affair) saw Ashley Pollard defeat Ben Schneider in a 35-second submission victory. In complete contrast to most of the previous fights on the card, Pollard caught Schneider in an arm-bar to win what was ultimately the quickest fight of the night.
Michael Sidwell defeated Nabil Nawaz after only a minute and six seconds, again by way of arm-bar, in a catch-weight fight. Sidwell timed a double-leg takedown to perfection as after successive transitions he secured a brutal arm-bar which led to medical staff being called into action after the fight.
Rico Biggs dethroned reigning champion Joe Pavey from the MMA featherweight title in the last of a succession of judges’ decisions, after a three-round thriller in which both fighters gained successful takedowns on each other. However it was crowd-favourite Biggs who earned a greater number of takedowns on his opponent, and the crowd was buzzing in the third round as a result.
Jack Andrews defeated Kingsley Crawford for the bantamweight title by way of another decision. In a back-and-forth encounter where both fighters showed an aptitude for grappling, Andrews edged ahead in the scorecards after landing multiple well-executed high kicks as well as getting the better of Crawford in some notable exchanges.
Dominant
Preceding Andrews’ capture of the bantamweight title, Tom Spooner defeated Ryan Jones for the middleweight K1 title via yet another unanimous decision. Fuelled by the support of a vocal crowd, Spooner gave a dominant performance over an overwhelmed Jones, coming out the better man in a number of exchanges. Having been knocked down in every round, Jones showed tremendous heart to survive all three rounds.
Emil Nikolov showed his superiority over Mehmet Yavuz in an undercard K1 title fight as a mature performance by the Bulgarian overwhelmed his 17-year-old opponent, with the Bulgarian winning the decision in the eyes of all three judges. With an especially dominant first and second round performance, Nikolov exposed his still-promising opponent’s lack of experience as he controlled the pace of the fight throughout with some excellent boxing.